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Street soccer is Pain
It's been two months since I've last played football, and I was fairly enthusiastic about today's session. Not wanting to show up as a zombie, I decide to try to sleep earlier. Torment ensued. Insomnia As one who has been sleeping at 4am or beyond lying down at 12.30am trying to snooze was fairly difficult. Up until around 3am I was fairly certain I was still awake, after 3am I wasn't very sure. I kept dreaming about being the leader of an evil conspiracy, with a huge army of advanced cybernetic superhumans at my back, plotting to conquer some country that vaguely resembled Malaysia, in between bouts of wakedness. When the alarm rang at 7.30am, I was like WTF, why am I in shorts, and where have the commandos gone? Contact lenses I only wear contact lenses to play football. I don't particularly enjoy stabbing myself in the eyeballs with my index finger, and don't have the patience to spend an additional 5 minutes doing it every-fucking-day. Since I've not played football for 2 months, I've also not put on contact lenses for that long. The results of my attempt to put them on were not pretty. When the little plastic slices of pure pain finally settled on my irises, I went down on my knees and covered my face with my hands, weeping. Then my mom started banging on the door to the washroom because she had to defecate her decaf. Street Soccer The street soccer court was occupied by a bunch of fit, enthusiastic looking young men who looked like they could play. That was not a good thing for us, a bunch of unfit, unmotivated young men who played like we were spastic pirates with wooden legs - on a good day. It wasn't a good day. Most of us hadn't played in ages. We could barely run even in our heyday, prefering to utilize these things called "cars". Running is so 1890s. Clicking the mouse while playing a first-person shooter was my idea of an intense workout. I had a pretty good warm-up though: I was panting from the strain of walking unto the court itself. Within the first 10 minutes I had sprained my ankle, within the first 20minutes I had hurt my knee. Fortunately I managed to rip into the back of Kai's knee with a callous and deliberate kick, and took more shin than ball in most of my "challenges", so I think it wasn't all bad.
You think you're good, Fleming...
...but can you finish Super Mario Bros 3 in 11 minutes? The Japanese, they are like gods.
Finally finished Deus Ex
The last mission wasn't fucked up like System Shock 2's was, either. If you haven't played it, you should. I worship Warren Spector like a god. This game has some of the best voice work I've ever heard. Yeah I know I'm 3 years late with this, but Deus Ex 2 is coming out. (SPOILERS IN DIALOGUE!) At the top of the Statue of Liberty. NSF leader: You can't fight ideas with bullets! At UNATCO after the first mission. Anna Navarre: "Are you sure you pressed the right button?" Gunther Hermann:"Yes! I wanted orange, it gave me lemon-lime." Anna: "So you think the staff has some kind of plot?" Gunther: "It's the maintenance man, he knows I like orange!" (Anna sees you walk in) Anna: "JC Denton, my new partner. Don't tell me you're going to wear those sunglasses during a night operation." JC: "My vision is augmented." Anna: "At least we will know it's not Paul." JC speaking to Carter. JC: What good's an honest soldier if he can be ordered to behave like a terrorist? At the Hong Kong level. In the context of the game, only China is a recognizable state. The rest of the world had been subsumed by the UN. Bartender: This is real freedom, freedom to own property, make a profit, make your life. The West, so afraid of strong government, now has no government. Only financial power. JC: The separation of powers acknowledges the petty ambitions of individuals; that's its strength. Bartender: A system organized around the weakest qualities of individuals will produce these same qualities in its leaders. JC: Perhaps certain qualities are an inseparable part of human nature. Bartender: The mark of the educated man is the suppression of these qualities in favor of better ones. The same is true of civilization. Vinny: Someone wasted the bartender. Drinks are free! (If you kill the bartender. Not sure if it's the HK level or Paris level.) JC speaking to a prototype of Daedalus. JC: I don't see anything amusing about spying on people. Morpheus: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are. JC: Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance. Morpheus: The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms. JC: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence. Morpheus: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary. Morpheus: The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. How can you not love a game with quotes like that? (Quotes mostly mined from the forums. I've no idea how to access the game's sound files. If anyone knows leave me a comment please.)
Allegedly Jacko rang Boyz 2 Men
...because he thought it was a delivery service. *drum-roll* *clang!*
Somewhere in France
In a year and a half, we'll all be graduating. Some of us will get married and start families, some of us will have jobs taking us far from here, and for the rest of us, who knows what the future will bring? 
2001 was a good year, wasn't it?
I really enjoyed this piece
NUS assistant professor of law comments on oral sex issue in Singapore I've also saved the file (without the graphics) here, since you can't access the file off the ST site after two weeks. While I do not agree with her conclusion, I think her arguments are excellent and she raises some damn good issues, but then she is an assistant professor of law. (PS. Kai, is she any good?) I think that her essay, which is based on the limitations of liberal morality, falls apart because prostitution is not illegal. (She doesn't mention it at all in her essay. To be fair she was looking at the big picture.) The moral basis for outlawing oral sex while retaining prostitution is not sound. However, for me, a layman with an interest in ethical philosophy, it was a very well-written critique of the grounds on which many people (including myself) attacked the oral sex law. My opinion is that the oral sex law reflects the considerations of a society that is not Singaporean. The law was passed down by a Victorian, colonialist, Christian society - but Singapore is neither Victorian, colonialist or Christian. The oral sex law does not reflect the moral fiber of -this- society. In fact, there isn't even an "oral sex" law, but an injunction against "unnatural sex". For most of us - the Buddhists, the Taoists, the Hindus, the freethinkers - fear of oral sex is completely alien. And frankly, I doubt most Christians care that much about it, though the extremists tend to make the loudest noise. I left out the Muslims because they have their own code of law with regard to sexual matters, and are not affected. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) The mores of a society are not constant, and though tradition should not be discarded arbitrarily, it must be remembered that tradition is neither monolithic or intransitory. Foot-binding, child-wives and other traditions that were not immoral in days of yore have been swept away by the invasion of Judeo-Christian ethics - and that is a damned good thing, in my mind. But it seems to me that the unnatural sex law vis-a-vis oral sex is an imposition of Judeo-Christian ethics on a population that cares not and has no tradition of disapproval of such activity. If it has neither a basis in the continuity of community nor in the prevention of harm what is the point of this law? What purpose does it serve? Whose morals does it uphold?
I was taking a dump when I started wondering
If a fishcake is made of fish, and a cheesecake is made of cheese, what's a cupcake made of? And should I be worried whenever one of my friends is called a beefcake?
How fun was your fun?
The evolution of a language can be so interesting sometimes. This morning, as I lay in bed, I was wondering who decides what form of usage is "correct", and what form of usage is "incorrect". And I thought of the word "fun" and how its word class has shifted from its original form. (Though it is never easy to decide at what point "original" is, etymologically - how far back do we go? It may have shifted syntactical function multiple times over the years - do we just take the meaning of a word at the point some dude decides to incorporate it into a dictionary and freeze it there, forever?) I mean, fun is properly a noun, "originally", but it has become just as comfortable as an adjective. Sentences where fun acts like a noun "Did you have fun?" "We had a lot of fun." "That was great fun" "Fun and games have never hurt anyone." now stand alongside sentences where fun acts like an adjective "That was a fun game." "He's a very fun guy." "This person is fun." "That was as fun as anything I've ever tried." Then of course we have the emergence of words like funner and funnest into common parlance. Both words resulted in over 50,000 results each on Google, which is quite impressive, though I suspect a lot of the results for "funnest" may have been the result of misspelling "funniest". It's quite easy to see why this is so. Most short adjectives have an "-er" and "-est" form (fast, faster, fastest; mean, meaner, meanest; weird, weirder, weirdest; etc) so why not "fun"? It's an entirely natural development. Less popular, but growing in usage nonetheless, is the word "funness" or "fun-ness". If "fun" is an adjective, it needs a noun form, so slap the noun suffix "-ness" on it and hey presto, we have a noun form of a... eh... a noun. I'm not sure what purpose "funness" serves as it doesn't differ significantly in meaning from "fun" (in fact, I don't see how it differs at all). But once the shift has begun certain things seem to spontaneously happen, and there's nothing the old language hold-outs can do about it. Then we have the verb form of "fun". Now we get people who are "funned out" after a day at the mall, or are "funning" their way through an amusement park. But that's rather unusual usage. I don't think it'll catch on the way funner and funnest will. Also, we have the adjective "funny", which has a different meaning from "fun", the word it was derived from. While "fun" is slowly becoming an adjective, the adjective "funny" seems to be slowly becoming a noun. Now we have a plural form of "funny": "funnies", as in "reading the funnies in the dailies" (note how daily has also become a noun in the context of a newspaper?). We also hear of people "who bring the funny", people who has "got the funny". And since "funny" isn't simply the adjective form of "fun" any more, "funniness" is quite distinct from "fun" the way "funness" isn't. Ain't evolution great? (This was discussed a bit a while ago.)
"Hey baby, by the way, I've got herpes."
Global survey highlights Singaporeans' attitude towards unsafe sex Here is the actual survey, on the Durex website. But despite downloading the PDF file I was unable to find the statistic highlighted in the Channelnewsasia story. They probably have a more in-depth version, or it's an entirely new survey. I am not sure. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, only three in ten Singaporeans will tell a long-term lover about having a sexually-transmitted disease. Yesterday we found that the number of HIV cases in Singapore has risen, comprised mainly of heterosexual males. Long-term readers of the blog may recall a rant about an NTU sex survey that showed a significant number of NTU undergraduates not using condoms during sex. But this takes the cake. To start with, all you assholes currently fucking your partners without telling them that you happen to have genitalia CRAWLING with invisible nasties that may cause paralysis, dementia, infertility, death and a horrible burning sensation while peeing, I've got two words for you: FUCK YOU. Not literally of course, I don't wanna catch whatever you've got, which you probably wouldn't have got if you had bothered to put it on, or got your partner to put it on, the last time you got pissed out of your mind at the club and ended up fucking the bouncer with a nervous tic and huge warts around his or her anus. My pet theory is that this is the result of Singaporeans having sex so rarely, an average of 96 times per year, behind Malaysia. Oh the humiliation! (I'm part of the problem. I'll do my best to get laid so that my country doesn't have to suffer from the shame. I'm so sorry, my countrymen.) Because Singaporeans have sex so rarely, they really want to make those chances count. It's classic kiasuism. You don't put the chicken in the oven with the wrapping on it do you? Same for sex! It's the same logic utilized by people who say that women have more fun during sex because when you dig your nose, your nostril enjoys it more than your finger. It's this kind of brilliant logic that has led to us having a national debt almost equal to our goddamned GDP, I bet. So they don't want to use the rubber, and they don't want their mates to know that they happen to have gonorrhea, because, that's the kind of stuff that really dampens the mood, you know? X: "Oh I love you baby." Y: "I love you too luv." (Associated sex noises: groans, creaking furniture, radio playing "Don't Go Down that Street" by Culture Club because it's bloody retro night.) X: "Hey baby, by the way, i've got herpes" Y: "Mmmmph yeah? I was wondering what all these red spots were doing there." X: "What did you think they were baby?" Y: "Oh I just thought you liked to masturbate without lubrication or something, luv." X: "That's so sick, baby." You think Y's gonna give X a blowjob after that? The worst thing, I think, is that these people will probably have children, and those poor kids are gonna get whatever they have got thanks to their Acts of Pure Assholishness. Assuming they or their spouses are still capable of having kids, of course. It'd also be caught during the check-up, most likely. But still! Don't get me wrong though. There's nothing wrong with getting an STD. It's just part of life. But if you do get one, and you think telling your lover ain't mandatory, I think you deserve to be beaten to death. In fact, you will be beaten to death should I become the Overlord of the Universe. And it will be done with a really big stick made of used condoms. And you will be buried in the corner next to the Penis Spammers, the Telemarketers, the Other Evil Dictators, the cast of Friends, clowns and the guy who thought "Police Academy" deserved six sequels. And you will rot in hell.
Man gets "spam rage" over penis ad
And who can blame him? From the article: He said his firm does not send spam but blamed a rival firm which he said routes much of their unsolicited bulk e-mail through Russia and eastern Europe. Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business. Damn those black sheep in the penis enhancement business.
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Being a pussy
This post is inspired by a really old entry by Kat and photos of cats over at kinkedtales. This is a story about pussy. You see, I am a cat man. By cat man, I mean I like cats not large enough to maul me, which excludes lions, tigers and the cast of the Broadway musical. It started when I was a kid (*Why do people always say "I had little kids running around"? How come no one ever talks about large kids? Or huge kids?*). I lived in a HDB flat in Jurong, and there was a mama shop at the void deck. The middle-aged guy who ran the mama shop owned two cats. One was a lean, grey stray with a kinked tail that strongly resembled one of the cats in kinkedtales and the other was her son; a lazy, obese tomcat that resembled all three cats, at the same time. It was that fat. The two cats were very affectionate. The mom wasn't too friendly to strangers, since she was a stray, but her son had always been under the care of this ah pek, and was quite trusting. When I get back from school I would walk to a little stone table with stone chairs and there they would be, the mother pacing around, the bell on her collar going clink, clink, clink, the son lying on its side, its eyes half closed. But reach down and pet it, and it would start stretching and mewing, the little overgrown monster. But one day the son disappeared. Nobody knows where it went. The ah pek believes that he was stolen by a group of teenagers. When my grandmother passed away, we held the wake at an open area in Toa Payoh, near her little one-room flat she shared with my grandfather (who died a few months later). I'm not sure if this is a Chinese belief, but my relatives told me it was very bad to have a cat roaming around near the corpse. Supposedly the corpse would "jump". I bet they only told me that to scare me, but I was 16 and very cynical. But when a cat, mostly white with brownish patches, strolled nonchalantly towards the the coffin my mom went hysterical. There wasn't anybody else there but me, and my mom HATES cats. So I was left with the task of getting the cat the hell away from my grandma's earthly remains. It was the most pleasant thing I had to do, because it was a sweet cat. It let me pick it up, and carry it around. You couldn't do that with a dog, hell, stray dogs are monstrously dirty buggers with bad breath. Cats on the other hand are clean. I carried it off to a back alley where I played with it for awhile before leaving it behind. For the next two days the cat would come back. I like to believe it was looking for me. I've always wanted to own a cat. Hey, everyone likes friendly pussy, right? Cats are pet-able, low-maintenance, and unlike dogs, they won't roll over and die because you forgot to feed 'em. But my mom wouldn't let me. She hates cats. She used to live in a kampung, so you'd think she'd be used to animals. But no. She likes to relate the time a cat had a litter in her clothing, and how horrible her wardrobe stunk afterwards. "No cats, they will make the house a mess," she said. I told her I could have the cat spayed. But no. No way, no go, no. Because it's her house, I had to comply. I'm not even saying she's wrong. Birds used to fill my house, and if the old Loony Toons cartoons were right it would be quite unsafe for the poor cat. But it has been the story of my life. Don't do this, don't do that. Don't take risks, son. Don't get hurt son. Be careful, son. Don't leave your hair like that, son. Don't wear contact lenses son, you might spoil your eyes. Don't run too fast son. Don't climb that son. Don't eat that son. Don't use that word, son. Be respectful, son. Was it any surprise that I became a completely foul-mouthed wuss? In other words, my mom's the reason why this puss ain't getting no pussy. It ain't Bate's Motel, mind you. I mean, at least Norman had a job.
First against the wall
I had written a post about the people I would kill if I were the Overlord of the Known Universe, but it became huge, unwieldy and full of bile in addition to being not funny at all, so I deleted it. Plus, it disturbed me to know that practically none of my readers would survive my Stalinist purges. Here's a short list of the people I had down on my "To Kill" list: 1. Telemarketers 2. Spammers 3. People who have a posh accent that have not lived for at least two years in area where posh accent comes from 4. Women with unshaved armpits who wear sleeveless clothing 5. Lawyers 6. Clowns 7. Axe murderers 8. People who fart loudly 9. Teenagers 10. People who take out their dentures in public 11. People who jog in between football games on Saturday These people will be tortured first, THEN killed: 1. The spammers that send email regarding adding more inches to my penis, with pictures. 2. People who think I must use "who" instead of "that" as a subordinator after a person 3. The cast of any of the "Police Academy" movies 4. People who whistle Celine Dion songs 5. Celine Dion 6. People who fart silently 7. People who tell me I am a "unique individual" 8. People who think I should use "an" before "unique". 9. People who run sites that have pop-ups, for their pop-ups This is a very short list. Yeah, it's not a proper update, but hey, it's my blog, and if you don't like it, I'M SORRY! I'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME! DON'T GO!
Two down, four to go
Finally finished David Sedaris' collection of essays "Me Talk Pretty One Day", and I thought it was excellent! I only hope to one day approach his ability at pointing out the nuances of life. His works for Esquire (which make up a large portion of the stories in "Me Talk...") can be found at the Esquire website. If you have to read only one story, I recommend "You Can't Kill the Rooster", but they are all brilliant. I find, however, that text reads MUCH better on paper than on a computer screen. On to Peter Hamilton's "A Quantum Murder". It's been unread for, what, two months since I bought it?
Sometimes you just need to confess.
Group.Hug.Us.
The Wiffle Waffle II
Now that the mutant mosquito that apparently spawned from the deepest depths of Dr. Moreau's imagination has left the room, I continue my little exposition. First off, let me state that everything I said in the first Wiffle Waffle was, in essence, a lie. Like all good fiction, it resembles reality. Sadly, that's also the only attribute it shares with good fiction. Here in Wiffle Waffle II, I present to you: The TRUTH®. You see, the Wiffle Waffle is an acquired skill. It can magically turn a "YES" into a "NO" a week later. It can magically eradicate promises made from the memory. It undercuts any decision, gnaws away at confidence, and eventually leads to total avoidance of the issue. It's like liquid paper (or white out) for the mind. Plus it keeps people on their toes, because saying "Well yeah, maybe" could mean ANYTHING. Still, it's a real balancing act trying to stay on the fence all the time. It takes talent, I think, to speak much but say nothing. And that's what the Wiffle Waffle is all about, text without communication. Generally the Wiffle Waffle comes out in full force at the end of November, when my results are released by the satanic force known as the Nanyang Technological University. Because my mom pays for my education, my lodging, my food, my clothes, and my MTV, she expects some return for her investment in terms of grades. Sadly, I'm not even the Enron of the academic world. At least Enron had some initial success. However, like an Enron accountant, I've become pretty good at dodging questions. "So have you got your grades yet, son?" my mom would ask, usually at a time when I'm trapped, such as while I'm feeding myself in between games of Gunbound. "Mmmadskmasdk kjdkj ummmfff daskkkjf," I would say, stuffing my mouth voraciously with rice. "Because my colleague's son has his results back," she would continue,"the one who got a job as a DJ in some radio station. Remember him?" At this point I would be desperately looking for some cabbage to fill my mouth. Pushing a bowl of bittergourd soup ("Because it's good for you, son.") in front of me, my mom would inevitably comment on how EXCELLENT the scion of others are as compared to those from her brood, all two of us. At this point her eyes seem to focus on something far away. I've always reckoned that she's wondering what life would be like if she had given birth to a champion stallion instead of a midget ass. "You know ahhhh, he has straight As again. He's also on the Dean's list! Did you know your dad was on the Dean's list as well? Even I scored mostly As and Bs when I was in Uni. Eat more bittergourd! I always thought that you would get a scholarship, and study in Europe, and I could go to Europe to visit you. I've always wanted to go to Europe." My eyes would be crossing from the bittergourd ("Nobody ever died from eating bittergourd, son.") and my mind straining from wondering how to explain the straight Cs I got for the semester. "Yeah, Europe," I would say. "Did I tell you about the time I went up the Eiffel Tower? That was way cool." "Stop trying to distract me. What's your grades?" "Grades?" I'd be poking at the wrinkled pork lying at the bottom of my bowl of bittergourd soup with a chopstick. "I think they're quite good la." "So what did you get?" Her. "Get what?" Me. "What grades did you get?" Her. "You mean this semester? Or last semester, because you know..." Me. "Of course I'm talking about this semester, which semester could I be talking about?" Her, slightly cross. "Well, if you aren't specific, I can't give you a specific answer can I?" Me, waffling. "So what grades did you get this semester?" Her, crosser. "Oh. Pretty good grades I think." Me, waffler. "Specifically." Her. Curt. "Eh?" Did you know that particles are REALLY helpful when one is trying to be evasive? "What grades did you get specifically." "Ah, you know... some good ones, some bad ones..." "That's not specific, son." "Well... specificallllly, I could have done better, but I could have done worse, and when I think about it, I think I did quite well." "So you had a C-average." "Kinda." Now a guy who had an A-average would have been able to wrap up that little anecdote above with a point of some sort. Unfortunately, that guy is currently playing Top 40 songs at some obscure local radio station, wining and dining with those other academic high-flyers on the Dean's list while I ran out of ideas sometime back in 1996, a time when people who started dot.com companies weren't laughed at, the second tallest player in the NBA wasn't Chinese, Macalay Culkin was still living with his girlfriend Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears was not quite a girl, not yet a woman.
The Wiffle Waffle (I)
It's been a boring day. Other than a few American choppers going down in flames and China threatening fiery death on the Taiwanese, nothing's happening at all. Therefore I'm just typing some shite for the heck of it. Plus while I was in the shower I thought "The Wiffle Waffle" was a funny title and I should write something involving it. I couldn't think of anything remotely 1. interesting, 2. valid or 3. useful so here's some crap you might hear at an alcoholics anonymous meeting, without the drunken slur. === Sometimes, I give people the impression that I'm a waffler. An indecisive wanker. A guy who always leaves enough space to waffle himself out of any promise. These people have the wrong impression. You see, I strongly believe that as long as one makes no decision, eventually, the decision will be made for one, usually by one's mom. It's effective and if anything goes wrong I can always truthfully say that I was forced to do whatever went wrong by circumstance. One* can't lose! I also call it the Turkey-Canada Method of Decision Making**. Plus, I can't be indecisive, because whenever someone asks me to make any decision regarding something that doesn't directly involve me I make decisions for them with outstanding insight and brilliance. For some reason, despite my choice being the obviously correct one, everybody seems to take the alternative. I'm beginning to believe that people only ask for my opinion just to piss me off. Example 1 JY: "Hey LY, should I take this $500,000 scholarship that allows me to study at any university I want to, in a course I'm planning to take anyway, be ensured a well-paying job and possibly fame and power?" ME: "Of course you should take it you retarded codemonkey." JY proceeds to drop the scholarship, spray wank all over journalists looking for a story and leave for FUCKING Stanford. Example 2 Bro: "Should I take a course I don't want in polytechnic, or go to ITE***, or retake O'levels AGAIN so that I can go to a course I STILL don't want to?" ME: "Go to ITE you fool. You have taken the O'Levels TWICE already. You're never gonna make it academically. LISTEN TO ME! IF YOU DON'T YOU'RE GONNA END UP AS A CAB DRIVER!" He retakes O'levels, fails it and he's now 21 years old with no certification. I should've beaten the stupid out of him when I had the chance. You know, at this point, I'm beginning to think that if I stop calling the people who ask me for advice "illiterate smurf-smoking puffballs" I might get better responses to my advice. (Giant mosquito hovering overhead. Aborting post. Fleeing.) *my favourite pronoun ** "So are we with Bush, or are we not?" "I don't know man. Yes. Wait. No, we aren't. Bah, give us another week will ya." ***A kind of technical school. Akin to a trade school.
Why do you need a test to find out what you already know?
Extroversion results were moderately low which suggests you are quiet, unassertive, and aloof. Friendliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately good natured, trusting, and helpful. Orderliness results were moderately low which suggests you tend to be unreliable, lazy, careless, and unmotivated. Emotional Stability results were moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and nervous. Intellectualness results were moderately high which suggests you are creative, original, curious, imaginative but possibly not very practical.
belle wanted a poem OR why i don't haiku in public
belle wanted a poem, i couldn't think of any - so i wrote haiku. i had tried to rhyme "shampoo sniffing addiction", but i was defeated. i had written one, but fuck my computer crashed - it made me angry. so i went downstairs, i played with the playstation - and got inspired. i wrote this for you, don't get huffy cos it sucks, i hate writing 'em. belle is such a gal, she's no one's bastard love child - not even that Bret guy's. belle is so damn hot, she once checked out some girl's ass - but hey who hasn't? sometimes i wonder, "maybe belle she's not quite sane." while scratching my ass. i am near the end, i am running out of words - my brain hurts like hell. such a pity that "she lived happily ever after" has nine syllables.
A day in the life of a non-artist
For the past two days I've been trying to create a new template for this blog, since that was something I promised myself. I even dug up some old notes from webdesign class (I almost failed that) in an attempt to create a design that was, well, different. The problem was, I couldn't come up with anything that looked decent. I have no sense of the aesthetic. Pictures confuse me. This is compounded by the fact that I've no technical skill either, and webdesign makes use of both. So for hours I was sitting in front of an old version of Dreamweaver thinking, man, this is not fun at all. I've been an art idiot since I was a kid. As a child I would bring my art homework home, and get my mom to help me. By help me, of course, I mean she did everything. Fortunately, my mom is an art idiot as well, so I never felt that I was cheating. If it's visual, it's not for me. But my ineptitude at the visual arts pale in comparison to my sheer incompetence at anything to do with music. During music class in primary school I was the master of the discordant note. You know the kid in the back who's forced to play the triangle? That's me. How do you mess up playing the damned triangle? Well I managed it. I couldn't carry a tune on the recorder. I couldn't tune a guitar without making it screech. I'm the guy who gets force-fed beer in karaoke bars so I wouldn't be able to pick up the microphone. Then there's... poetry. Oh my god. How I hate trying to write poetry. Or reading it. Or godforbid, listening to it. That was one of the reasons I left the arts stream in junior college for science. I couldn't stand p o e t r y. Let's just say that one needs to have a decent knowledge of the way language works before one should attempt poetry, and your average 18-year-old Arts student, doesn't. And I daresay, the horror I inflicted on the class was as awful as that inflicted on me. Perhaps even worse. Sometimes, even on purpose. Bad poetry is its own end. Dear Parrot, How I love thee - Like a Playstation 2 With a Gameshark And three naked chicks Playing Winning Eleven 7. Dear Parrot, Why do you bite me When I'm trying to feed you While I'm playing Winning Eleven 7 With a Gameshark And three imaginary women. Dear Parrot, Did you know - If you divide random text Into different lines, Anything can look Like poetry. (But I have only the greatest respect for those good at verse, like, eh... Dr. Seuss.)
Welcome to the club, Taiwan
Taipei may ban gum-chewing on its MRT trains Too harsh? Or not?
From Crystal's The English Language (2nd Edition)
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. - Never use a long word where a short word will do. - If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. - Never use the passive where you can use the active. - Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. - Break any of these rules rather than say anything outright barbarous. by George Orwell, in Politics and the English Language (1947)
Stupid idiot
I finally had a look at an assignment I got back around a week ago. What I saw made me laugh at my own incompetence and lack of editing skills. You see, on that assignment, circled in thick, red ink by my professor, were the words: "news journalist". Embarassing, really.
Horse, Cart, See
Now, I'm pretty sure that many Chinese words do have pictographic origins, but I found this comic by Chew to be pretty damned funny. I'm not exactly sure what he's trying to get at, though. I just found it funny. I'm actually fairly interested in learning more about the evolution of the Chinese language, though I fear it is too late for me to get any good at it. Anyway, I went to Google for some good sources on the Chinese language. Looks like another trip to Borders soon. Just gotta finish Crystal's The English Language first, I'm halfway through and it's absolutely great so far. A brilliant primer for anybody interested in the English language I reckon, especially for amateurs like me. ***warning language rant ahead*** Chinese is without doubt *NOT* pictographic, though many words may have pictographic origins. Chinese is *NOT* a monosyllabic language, in the sense that each syllable does not always contain a full idea, and in the sense that usually a single word has more than on syllable, eg. "kai1 fa1" for "cultivation of land". I don't see how "kai fa" could be classified as a phrase. Chinese is *NOT* ideographic, each "ideogram" does not signal one "idea" any more than an English syllable might. It is "ideographic" the way English is "phonetic" - neither is really true. This one comic has also led me to ponder about the way Singapore conducts the teaching of "Mandarin". It seems to hover between teaching it as a second language and as a first language, without being successful at either. I am no linguist or educationist (?), so bear with me, these are pretty much wild guesses based on personal experience pre-1996. I do not know whether my guesses are valid with respect to the other "mother tongues", that is, Malay and Tamil. (Out of the hundreds of dialects from India why Tamil was picked out to be the mother tongue of ALL Indians in Singapore I do not know. Anyone who does please drop me a comment.) Firstly, it seems to me the heavy emphasis on Chinese (from now on, I use "Chinese" to mean Mandarin, or Putonghua) as an essential subject to *pass* has led to an all-too-competitive method of teaching in schools. I find it destructive, in fact, it certainly destroyed any enthusiasm I had for the language. While I believe that rote-learning has a place in school, excessive rote-learning is pointless. When I was in the Chinese High I was made to memorize a formula for my compositions. (This, by the way, is also used for the English language.) I also had to memorize certain phrases that I could drop during my examinations. This is ridiculous. Examinations are a means to an end while an education is an end in itself. But it seems here that roles have been reversed. Secondly, I do not believe there is enough time on the syllabus for Chinese as a second language to be taught in a way that treats it like a first language. Personally I believe it is the result of conservative thinking amongst the Chinese-speaking elite. Personally I think there needs to be reform in how Chinese is taught. We need to recognize that this is a second language and that it is difficult for most people to be truly proficient unless they are interested, and in this case they will likely take the option of learning it as a first language as well. I fear I do not have the expertise to solve this dilemma, but I believe that forcing 8-year-old kids to spend hours and hours memorizing key words is not the way. If Chinese is indeed a second-language, then teach it like a second-language - with the help of a first language. I mean, don't you think it would be really difficult to learn Malay, as a non-Malay speaker, purely in Malay? More needs to be done in the classroom to make learning Chinese interesting, but not TOO interesting. I don't believe in the fun and games means of teaching, or giving students too easy a way out. If there's an easy way out, they WILL take the easy way out. By no means am I saying that there should be no coercion in education. I am not *that* liberal. Thirdly, Chinese, rightly or wrongly, signifies a set of values that may be conceived of as being outdated in the minds of children. It is also conceived of as being a staid language that lacks the vitality of English. The latter is not true, the former is only true because it is being taught that way. The Chinese textbooks here have so many parables, it is off-putting. In Singapore they imbue the Chinese language with too much ideology, indeed they seem to treat the transmission of Chinese as a means of transmitting "moral values" as well. Again I blame the Chinese-speaking conservatives*. I dare say no language is value neutral, but there is no need to impregnate it with your own values. *By this I mean those Chinese-speakers who strongly resist the modernization of the language, who adhere to the idea that there is only *one way* to speak and write the language, who still believe in the superiority of the *old classics* and who think that there is only one kind of Chinese-ness (a kind of language fascism that only helped to severe MY roots, which I lament).That is, the language-nazis, so to speak - the absolute purists, the inquisitors, the absolutely self-righteous. This applies to the English-speaking language-nazis, of which I am not (though I have used it as a nick on occasion). I hate it when people use big words just to show off, or pad their language with redundancy. I mean, I think words like "funner" and "funnest" are entirely natural developments of the language. While "fun" was originally a noun, like in the sentence "Let us have some fun" it has pretty much become an adjective eg. "What a fun thing to do" with a meaning that is very different from the "correct" adjective form "funny". Since most short adjectives in English can take the comparative "-er" or superlative "-est" such usage makes sense. I bet people who shout at people for using "funner" are the same ones who use sentences like "He shrugged his shoulders."
TEN THINGS YOU ALREADY KNEW ABOUT ME
1. I've never had a paying job in my life, excluding national service. Not one. I am a spoilt brat. 2. I lie on a fairly regular basis. But I sometimes forget what I lied about and screw up, forcing me to make up ludicrous excuses to cover up for that lie. Some people find it funny, for some odd reason. However, I suck at poker or bluff. One of my favourite lies: telling people I watch a lot of porn, and then pretending that I was joking. 3. I worship Lee Kuan Yew like he is a god. And no, I'm not writing this in case some bigwig at Temasek Holdings discovers this blog. I'm not even saying he's a good guy, he's one of the old gods, the type that requires human sacrifice and graduate marriages, and fuck, if he wants my firstborn child he can have it. I don't think spermbanks give out that kind of info easily, though. 4. I never do anything to completion. 5. My dad has a vast collection of porn that I showed all my friends. 6. I like cats.
A family at play
It was my granddad's birthday yesterday. I'm not the type of person who particularly likes my relatives. I reckon if they share my DNA they can't be very good people. Okay, they're fine peeps (most of 'em anyway), but I'm not really close with any of 'em. I hated going to these extended family gatherings as a kid. Gossiping aunts are bad enough, but once everyone else started having kids (I'm the oldest grandson) I reckoned such outings were really merely excuses for the female version of mass cockwaving, with the children - my cousins and I - being the phalluses. I mean, it's really annoying being talked while in earshot. What am I, some sort of dog on display? It's all very Joy Luck Club-ish (I despised that movie btw) minus the ludicrous East is conservative and West is progressive dichotomy. Nowadays it's better, because I'm no longer a kid. While the usefulness of family togetherness is being (or has been) obliterated by the HDB life, it's always a good thing to know that in times of need there's an entire army of wizened Chinese ah-sohs willing to pull you out of the fire. It had been about half a year or so since I went to a family gathering. I'm pretty much ignored nowadays, because frankly I can be a rather sarcastic arse. It might shock you, but yes, I can be a total asshole. That is a very good thing, btw. It's idiotic when I used to walk in and people would say, "OH, how you've grown!" For your information I've not gained an inch since 1996, thank you very much, you bloody mental midget. But when I stepped into the tiny 3-room flat where my grandpa lived, a place far too small for my horde of relatives to co-exist in comfort, I had to stop myself from uttering those same words. It's really annoying when cousins I've actually seen wrapped in diapers now TOWER over me. More annoying though, is the fact that despite being the children of a cook who used to work for the British when they were the colonial overlords not a single one of my aunts can whip up a half-decent dish? I got bored halfway writing this, so I'm aborting this entry RIGHT HERE.
I had to post this
It's hard to keep the lid down on this one
Singapore to celebrate World Toilet Day I'm speechless.
The day I decided to clean my room. (Possibly Part One)
Again, I am sitting quietly, worshipping the OTHER Altar of Modern Life, when lightning struck and killed my cable modem, just as I was about to bunge (*to plunge into the depths*) some asshole shotgun Turtle with my Nak on Gunbound. In rage, I kicked my chair, but thanks to Newton's Third Law of Motion, the chair kicked back, followed up with a vicious Atomic Legdrop, and pinned me 1 - 2 - 3! After a while, I recovered from the beating, and stood up. Like a Redoxon tablet in a bucket of acid the chemicals in my brain fizzled and sizzled and made all sorts of gaseous noises, and fwoosh, like a zeppelin, a thought arose from the murky depths of my mind. My room was a DUMP! At this point, I had two choices: ignore it, and make friends with the denizens of the thriving ecosystem that had developed in the various nooks and crannies in between used notes, ancient packets of food and coffee stained computer equipment. Or I could wage a war of extermination against them, and their leader, a sentient giant dustball named Rupert. After 30 seconds of buttscratching, I decided to launch a pre-emptive strike, as Hitler did against them durned Czechs in the Sudetenland. It would be a glorious battle, and like a frenzied Chinese peasant during the Great Leap Forward I busied around the room attacking dust and dirt with a feverish fervour. An hour later, the room looked worse than before, and I was coated with sweat, filth and some strange sticky compound as yet unidentified by science. Where's
A ride in the dark
I am sitting quietly, worshipping the Altar of Modern Life, when my dad walks over to my brother's room and starts going off at him, because my brother lent my dad's camcorder to some dude, and he was supposed to return it today. Apparently something cropped up, and the guy couldn't pass it back. My bro had arranged to get it back tomorrow, but because my dad is the kind of guy who can really get your heckles up with incessant bitch-like nagging my bro decides to just drive out and get the damned camcorder even though it was rather late (around 10pm). When my brother asks me to join him, I turn off the TV and accept, because if I don't, my dad will turn his attention in my direction. I mean, this is the guy who wouldn't let mom have a good night's sleep even when the illness that eventually made her deaf in one ear was afflicting her. In the car, I ask my brother, "So, where the hell does Jianhui stay?" My bro answers, "Jurong." "What the fuck, so far?" I exclaim. "Don't tell me he lives in the Extension!" "Yeah." "OH FUCK." Eventually we get to Jurong, and proceed to get totally lost. For the guys who understand, we reached the Jalan Bahar entrance first, and later we end up at the other bloody NTU entrance during the search! === Along the way, we nearly smash at full-speed into the back of a taxi. I almost peed my pants, but I missed. I proceed to give the blind idiot I happen to share a significant amount of my DNA with a mouthful of pure vitriol. === Eventually we pick up the camcorder and head to a nearby Esso to top up the fuel tank, the contents of which had diminished greatly from the drive. We go in, miles from home, and allow the assistant fill the tank. My brother goes to pay, and I run off for a quick piss. Later, upon entering the "On the Run" shop that has the counter, my brother tells me, "Eh... I forgot to bring my ATM card." I did not have my wallet with me. We were miles from home. We had ten dollars between us. I run screaming outside and shout to the man pumping precious, expensive fuel - fuel we had no money for - that he must stop. But it was too late. The cuppeth had overfloweth. At this stage, I was fully prepared to beat the stupid out of my brother. Then the police came and we were led away to the local lock-up, where we were forced to furiously masturbate an inmate. Ok, that's what would have happened if my bro didn't have a friend living nearby, who had money and was willing to come and help pay. Well, my bro called another friend for help first, but the guy said "he didn't have the money". Right, sure. A friend who wouldn't take a five minute walk to lend a pal in need $50, isn't one. That's why I didn't see your SMS about playing Gunbound, Marcus; I was out on the streets trying not to get killed. I only got home at 1.30am! *All references are intentional.*
I think this is the central question of existence
What do you do when you do not want to do something somebody wants you to do but if you do not do it you fear that nobody will ask you to do anything ever again?
This is rather boring
Like I said two posts down, I want to buy the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". A friend invited me to go fer a drink (this is a rare and spectacular event btw), so I decided to take the chance to get out of the house around three hours early to head to Borders in town, and look for the book. For some inexplicable reason, Borders rearranges its shelves every few months. Ok, I lied, I do know the reason. You see, people tend to pick a section they like, and return to that section most of the time. By changing the section arrangement, Borders forces people to break their habits, and make them explore the area just to find that bloody Fantasy section. This way, it increases the likelihood of people buying something else. Well, it's BLOODY ANNOYING. It's also why supermarkets tend to put the essentials at some faraway, hard to reach, hard to see corner so that the poor shopper has to go through stupid sections like "Assorted Cheeses", "Processed Cow Parts" and "American Wines" just to get some damned Cheez Bitz. And once you get the hang of it, they SHUFFLE THE SHELVES. I think it's ass, and I thank the gods that the local mama shops have survived McSupermarketization. Mostly. I fucking hate marketers btw. Anyway, Borders doesn't carry "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", which leaves me with only the Amazon option. Hopefully it'd get here by Christmas... Christmas 2010. (Maybe you'd get your DVD by then, Belle.) Still, it wasn't a total loss. I walked out with "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris and "The English Language" by David Crystal. Hopefully, they should last me the holidays. A month and a half before I start working at SPH, and/or become Singapore's premier porn scriptwriter! Eventually I get to Toyz Bar, which was pretty much empty but for the four of us. I consumed lots of beer and played lots of Bomberman on the bar's Playstation 2. I hate beer, and I hate Bomberman, but it was fun. I'm mildly hungover. I'm also dead broke.
Post-Exam Blues
The exams are over, and... now what? What do I do now? 1. Find a job? 2. Write the Great Singaporean Novel? 3. Write the Great Singaporean Porn Flick? 4. Read all the books I've left unread, even if they're crap? 5. Steal from the poor, give to the rich? 6. Become a full-time sperm donor? So much time, so little to do.
Eats, shoots and leaves
Panda walks into restaurant, orders meal, scoffs same. Stands up, fires two shots from a revolver conveniently concealed, and walks out. "What did you do that for?" cries outraged proprietor. "I'm a Panda, dumbass. Look it up in that crap encyclopedia on your shelf." (stolen from soc.history.what-if) I must buy this book.
I am so anal sometimes
I was surfing Dave Barry's blog, and found this story about a diner beating up an old deaf woman. It was pretty funny. In the article, there was a quote that made me uncomfortable: "Unprovoked, Shapiro punched the 71-year-old woman in the mouth with a closed fist." Firstly, what the hell is a closed fist? Is there such a thing as an open fist? If your hand is open, it's not a fist anymore, is it? Or are there degrees of open-ness that a fist may have? Is it some kind of Bruce Lee thing? Secondly, why do you need the adverbial "with a closed fist" there anyway? Is the verb "punched" not sufficient description of what happened? Are there people going around punching people with paper punchers instead of their fists? Maybe there's something different about the fist - oh, it's not a normal fist, it's a CLOSED one! Like wow.
The end is in sight
Soon I will be free! Three Nietzsche quotes for you, inspired by some stuff I read today, written by people so stifled by their own certainty that they fail to see their own ignorance. Magnifying the speck of knowledge they possess into the only "truth" they can understand, they purposefully straitjacket themselves with a casual, horrible grin, by uttering the most foolish of phrases: "It is already known." How does one lead the frog out of the well? Here are the quotes, again from Human, All-too-Human. === Loyal to their convictions.— The man who has a lot to do usually keeps his general views and opinions almost unchanged; as does each person who works in the service of an idea. He will never test the idea itself any more; he no longer has time for that. Indeed, it is contrary to his interest even to think it possible to discuss it. === Enemies of truth.— Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. === Opinions grow out of passions; inertia of the spirit lets these rigidify into convictions.— However, if one feels he is of a free, restlessly alive spirit, he can prevent this rigidity through constant change; and if he is on the whole a veritable thinking snowball, then he will have no opinions at all in his head, but rather only certainties and precisely calculated probabilities.— But we who are of a mixed nature, sometimes aglow with fire and sometimes chilled by the spirit, we want to kneel down before justice, as the only goddess whom we recognize above us. Usually the fire in us makes us unjust, and in the sense of that goddess, impure; never may we grasp her hand in this condition; never will the grave smile of her pleasure lie upon us. We revere her as the veiled Isis of our lives; ashamed, we offer her our pain as a penance and a sacrifice, whenever the fire burns us and tries to consume us. It is the spirit that saves us from turning utterly to burnt-out coals; here and there it pulls us away from justice's sacrificial altar, or wraps us in an asbestos cocoon. Redeemed from the fire, we then stride on, driven by the spirit, from opinion to opinion, through the change of sides, as noble traitors to all things that can ever be betrayed—and yet with no feeling of guilt.
Update for the Day
I have no opinion whatsoever about anything today. Just thought you guys might like to know. OK that's not really true. I was eating with my bro at the foodcourt in Hougang when he pointed out a foodstore named "Muslim Halal Food". The word "Halal" - NOT NECESSARY! Which reminds me. There's this store in my school that has this banner hanging over it, with the words: "Best Store of the Month for Excellence in Cooking". Who names all these awards? Is there someone out there giving out awards for "Non-excellence in Cooking"? Well it would be the worst store of the month, wouldn't it? Plus, it's had that banner for half a year. Apparently we've got really long months in this part of the world.
Why my country doesn't blow
Because it's against the law This isn't really newsy news though. We all know that if you're gonna stick your bits in someone else's bits, them bits better have the government's mandate, or else. It's nothing new to the average Singaporean. I don't think prostitution is entirely legal as Yahoo claims, but most of the time the authorities turn a blind eye to it. I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, you know what I really think blows? And not just the girl. I mean, the girl was legal and she agreed to the act. Then SHE turns him over to the police? That's mighty low. Plus, how the HELL do you prove that you had oral sex with the guy? Gargle? Also, can someone tell me exactly WHY only the man was jailed and not the girl too? Surely in order for the criminal act to happen both parties had to play a part! It's not easy performing oral sex on yourself, I tell ya. Not easy at all. Not that I've tried, of course. *cough* This is way fucked up. If I have a tiff with a girl I should be allowed to turn her over the police for mouthing my penis if she could. "She made me do it, sir. I have proof we did it too. Check out them teeth marks." Update I was wrong. The story generated a fair bit of controversy, not a bad thing, considering that this law is fairly retarded. There were two letters to the Straits Times' forum: Letters and a news piece. Apparently it's one of those laws that's there, because, well, the British left it behind, and we just kept it long after our "dear" ex-colonial masters got rid of it, probably for being "bloody dodgy". I don't care what you think. If a woman says she's willing to go down on me, or vice versa, neither of us should be allowed to blackmail each other after doing it.
So I broke down
I've begun to link blogs. I guess I'm part of a... a community now, huh?
The tail of the dragon
You know what really irritates me? Those "Russian doll" emails. Those 500kb emails that's typically titled: "FWD: R34lly funni stuff!!" and because you're a sucker you click on the little attachment symbol, and you come to another email that's 488kb big. With an attachment. So you click on the attachment, because now, hey, you're really interested in finding out what's so damned funny, and morbidly curious as to how deep this rabbit hole goes. And you reach another email, with an attachment. Roughly 5000000 clicks and 4 million little Microsoft Outlook windows later, you finally reach the original email, which is only about 5 lines long, and looks something like this: >>>FUNNY HOSPITAL JOKE!!! >>>>Have you heard of this one Joe? >> >> >> >>>Who are the nicest people in the hospital? >>> >> > > > >>>KEEP LOOKING!!! > > >> > >>>ALMOST THERE!!! > > >> >> >> > >>>...the ultra sound guys!!! Then your computer hangs from all the goddamned open windows.
Cool bar
(for the 4I guys) So I felt guilty and messaged the subject of the previous message with ICQ, and after a chat, she told me about this: Toyz Bar It's a local bar. Playstation, cards, transformers. Anyone's birthday coming up? We could have fun here methinks! Of course, it'd probably be cheaper to just get Adrian to drag his PS2 to Choonhou's house, but still... For you other guys: The Meatrix!
Life and Death
So I'm interacting with some humans today. This girl is talking about feeling really low, because a member of her family passed away today. Since I have the empathic ability of a newt I talk about how my own grandmother died during the O'levels blah blah blah, and how I get on by too. Of course, guess which family member of hers died. :/ I need to learn to shut the fuck up or just offer condolences. Anyway, I get home, and there's this cake on the table. With the cake, are a couple of red eggs, a traditional gift when there is a birth in the family. Apparently one of my mom's friends sent it over. There is no moral here.
More idle conversation
Scene: Canteen, lunchtime, two hours before the exam Actors: Bunch of people. We are talking about "narrative nonfiction" since it is a subject that we were supposed to give our opinion on. I'm a bit of an old school journalist in the sense that I don't think the facts should be embellished just to make a story easy reading, so I'm talking about how this "genre" is completely indistinguishable from blogging, and how journalists ought to try and stick to the facts, and only the facts, ma'am, on a hard news piece. Who wants to read the memoir of someone utterly unimportant? "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is the exception, not the rule, and not everyone has an "Angela's Ashes" inside them. So S says, "That's not true! On my blog I just blurgggpt everything out. A narrative nonfiction writer would be a lot more focused." I say, "That's not really true, anyway. There are lots of political blogs that pretty much concentrate on a specific issue. But I know what you mean." Cue switch in focus. S says, "You know, I'm getting worried that some people that shouldn't be reading my blog are." I say," How come?" S says,"There've been comments on my blog from users I don't recognize." I say, "Well, duh, if your blog is online there are going to be strangers reading it..." S says, "But those comments seem... personal! I think they know me!" I say, "But... so what?" S says, "I wouldn't be able to bitch about certain things and people... you know?" And there it is. Every bloggers worst nightmare: someone you know somewhere who you don't think is reading your blog, is. Foolish S, now that she has revealed that she has a blog, I shall make use of all the powers Google has granted me to uncover the whereabouts of said BLOG (I have a clue it's on livejournal). Of course, I could have just ASKED her for the address of the blog. But where's the fun in that? I, of course, made no mention about this blog. If I wasn't idiotic enough to forget that James sometimes reads the clan board those 4I guys would have no notion of the existence of this blog as well. Btw, some of the conversation didn't really happen that way. But hey, it's CREATIVE nonfiction baby!!
Thought for the day
Is a "bloated bureaucracy" a redundancy?
WTO style free trade: Yea or Nay?
I tend to avoid political stuff as you know. But for tomorrow's Public Affairs Journalism paper I've been reading up on the various WTO Ministerial Conferences (Singapore, Geneva, Seattle, Doha, Cancun). My vote: NAY! Back to work.
Mystery note
It's 8.30am in the morning and I am preparing to go to the uni. I notice a slip of paper inside my bag. I take it out and notice that I have written a date "October 27" on it. So here I am, racking my brains trying to remember WTF I did not do on October 27. I still can't remember. And it makes me nervous. Someone tell me why I didn't write down what the date was for? (harsh whisper: because you're a lazy dumbass) Thanks.
More dangerous than Happy Fun Ball
So fun, it's shocking. What's wrong with just spinning a bottle, and poking the guy who's "it" with a stick?
I should be studying now
Tomorrow's paper: Feature Writing. How am I supposed to study for something like that? Either you've got it or you haven't, baby! And I don't have none, yo. *** COMPUTER GAME ALERT!! (Just ignore this, really.) In Europa Universalis II news: The Duchy of Milan has finally had a show down with the Austrians. My French allies were overrun and surrendered within the first few months of the conflict, leaving me to face the Poles, Prussians and Austrians with my erstwhile Corsican vassals, who proceeded to wall themselves up on their wee island. Bastards. Yes, the Poles had fallen back into the Austrian orbit, sadly. I launched the invasion after Austria declared war on the Ottoman Empire. My Greek holdings would be directly threatened should the Austrians manage to gain a powerful stronghold in the Balkans, and I like the rump Ottomans around. They help keep the eastern Med stable, and I like it that way. So I'm getting hammered by the unholy trio, when the Behemoth of the East declares war on Poland. Russian troops stream into Poland, and a white peace is drawn between me and the Poles and the Prussians (the Poles weren't much, but the Prussians were giving me a right hammering) leaving me to face the Austrians alone. Eventually I manage to capture Vienna and most of Hungary, but war weariness in Italy create massive rebellions all over the Milanese world. I was hoping to gain the Hungarian lands (to be released as a vassal), splitting Austria-Hungary and creating a very favourable scenario in East Europe, but I was forced to take Tirol and 100 ducats despite controlling most of Hungary. Not too bad, really. Perhaps in the next war. Before the bastard Frederick the Great comes to power in Prussia, deffo. Oh, what happened to the Russians? The Austrians moved north after ceding Tirol, and proceeded to give the Tsarists a good old assraping. Damn fun, as long as you don't treat it like a "world conquest" game.
Have you ever had this happen to you?
You're in the middle of something utterly mundane, trivial and routine - such as slicing cabbages, taking a shit, playing football or writing a blog - when suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, a thought of such sweet clarity, of such sweet profoundness comes to you like you were shot, like you were shot with a diamond, a diamond bullet right through your forehead; and just as you are about to grasp it, you are rudely interrupted by banality - such as getting your finger sliced off, shitting on the floor, getting hit in the face by a football or an ICQ chat message - and then it's gone, gone forever. Well? Yeah, me neither.
Fun things I did today.
1. Studied for my English Language GE. Will continue to do so. 2. Played Europa Universalis II. Started playing last night. I am using the Duchy of Milan, and at this point in time (1617) I have in control the whole of Italy, save for Sicily. My strategic aims: Conquer Sicily, keep the Germanic lands divided, prop up Poland for as long as possible, keep Austria out of Italy or Northern Germany, force the Ottomans out of Greece and conquer the juicy Alexandria Centre of Trade. The religious wars in Poland/Germany had just ended, and I managed to split the Austro-Polish alliance (at one stage the Austrians-French-Poles were allied!). The Poles just declared war on the Turk, and with any luck I should be able to stall the Ottoman expansion into central Europe, and turn my levies towards the Spaniards currently sitting in Sicily. I love pretending to be a Renaissance Prince. 3. I found yet another blog written by one of my schoolmates. I would link it but I realized how easy it is to trace me if I do, and I don't want to be traced, do I? 4. This is not a particularly original thought*: Women want men who are funny, while men want women who find them funny. *Stating the obvious really; after all, I've never had an original thought in my life.
I am drinking this thing called Shark Energy Drink
And I've come to this conclusion: energy drink: NP. disgusting, over-sweetened, toxic, liquid crap pretending to be potable
I dedicate this post to Soccer Saturdays
This entry will be positively meaningless to you if you don't know what my friends are like. Perhaps you guys can find parallels with your own friends. Feel free to ignore this as meaningless tripe if you must. Or click on this! Here goes. Pulling an Adrian: The strange phenomenon where, under criticism, a respondent replies by making a comment that has little or nothing to do with the topic at hand, or even displays any sort of resemblance to logic as commonly practised by the sentient species currently residing on the planet Earth, sometimes known as humanity. Spinning a Kaixiang: Where a half-naked man takes a football (soccerball if you must), proceeds to dribble up-field until he is marked by an opponent. Proceeds to circle around in the spot until five other opponents surround him, and refuses to pass despite the presence of at least 4 free men. Metaphor for circular rhetoric that seems impressive but indeed has no point, and the person who has to debunk it feels all dirty after afterwards, because said fucker likes to slam his sweaty ass into you. Eg. "Man, I can't argue with that lawyer, he's been spinning a Kaixiang all day!" the Marcus phenomenon : Where a person is trapped in a role he despises because he is the only member in the organisation that has any propensity for it. He rebels by breaking free of the role by doing senseless, insane things despite his obvious talent. Also see: "Pulling a Barthez". Eg. "I hate accounting, but since I'm the only guy good at math, they made me the Marcus." doing a Jiayi: To aggressively engage, to stick to like honey on a bee, shit to a fly or teflon to a pan. Also: to cause pain to an opponent's ankle by repetitive knocks. Eg. "Michael Jackson did a Jiayi to those poor children at his farm." a James backheel: Where a person, faced with an easy option, proceeds to try to pull off the impossible, and failing spectacularly, as always. Eg. "I told him he could have just used the bottle opener, but no, he had to pull a James backheel and use his teeth. Now he has no teeth and I still haven't got my beer." Choonhou-ism: To excessively rely on a single strategy or skill; usually after some early success Franciscouting: The ability to detect beautiful women at great distances Marcusfuck: To compromise the team for one's own selfish goals; usually done by someone with talent. Eg. "Oei, gambit, got people cover our rear or not?" "Ya Scoot, fleming is watching the balcony with the AWP." HEADSHOT! HEADSHOT! (ghost)"WTF? I thought fleming was supposed to guard the rear?" (ghost)(using free-view)"Aiya, fleming ran off to the base to get the freefrags! We got marcusfucked!" kelvinism: An unbelievable, outright lie about why one did not turn up as promised. Eg. "How come Joe is not here ah?" "He said that he had forgotten that he had to personally neuter his pet Shihtzu today." "That's a goddamned kelvinism." Phee up: To become excessively bloated; also describes the phenomena where the head and the neck become indistinguishable, ie. the disappearance of the chin under layers of flesh eg. "Man, have you seen Joe? The guy who used to be really skinny? I heard he really Pheed up after he stopped swimming, man!!!" ADDED AS PER REQUEST chaoyify: to strike terror (into the heart of waste disposal units) Eg. "Man, don't piss Joe off, or he's gonna chaoyify that dustbin over there!" Oddly I can't think of anything for Chunkeat. You'd think he'd be easy.
If there is a pattern here, it's entirely imaginary
The day, in sketches. *** I'm walking to Hall C for the Media Management exam. I see two girls sitting on a bench. I nominally know them. One waves. I wave back but I don't approach. I urgently needed to use a washroom, but surely I looked like an anti-social ass, as opposed to merely being one. *** Outside the hall, I see an acquaintance. Nobody else around, so I go up beside her, and flip open my notes. Cue pleasantries. I take a peep at her textbook. It's filled with red and yellow and green markings. "If you're going to highlight almost every line,"I ask,"what's the point?" She shrugs. "Because it looks nice." *** Two people join us. Another girl joins in. Zhang Wuji comment mentioned previously. *** I realize I forgot the name of the girl. The phrases "hey, you" and "oei" become universal pronouns. *** Exams. Realize that I don't really understand 70% of it. Nirvana ensues. But I'm going to ace it anyway (cos belle said so). *** People stream out of the exam hall, and I am caught in the wave. Realize that for some reason I had forgotten the names of people I have only not seen for two weeks. Clearly my brain is still in the 640kb era. Huge crowd makes me uncomfortable. I do not spy my kakis in a quick scan, so I decide to head towards NIE to return a book. The usual: head bowed low, walking quickly. If I lived in Sweden I would have had a hood on, because it'd be cold. I'd be a Swedish midget in a hood. I thank the heavens I'm not Swede every day. I cannot see myself as a Svensson from Kormstad. I bump into PN. "Hey," she says, "did you write for the Sunday Times?" "Nope," I reply. Note that I'm standing in the middle of the road on a zebra crossing. Not comfortable at all. "Oh! I wanted to ask because they haven't paid me yet!" "The bastards," I reply. Freelancers don't get no respect. *** Smile, wave, goodbye. *** I encounter X on the way to NIE. He tells me to go to Canteen B for lunch since SX and WL are there. So I walk with him. He's Laotian. I remark that the Laotian language (Lao) would be pretty difficult for English speakers since it has the "ng" sound at the front a lot. Yeah, he says, and Laotians have problem with the "l" sound at the end of English words and the R "trill" since they don't exist in Lao. He makes me say "How are you" in Lao. I say it. Perfectly, I might add. "Wow," he says. "You are good!" "Why are you surprised?" *** X goes off right after we reach Canteen B to meet other Laotians. At least there was a bunch of people there. I join 'em. Idle conversation in between mouthfuls of food. I mention something about how the transport minister reversed his previous stand on the Northeast Line and how fucked up it was, and P pipes up, "What's wrong with you Lianyi? Why are you so obsessed with the NEL?" *** I leave with SX, at Jurong Point we encounter A. The three of us go to a music store. Nope, they don't carry the Flaming Lips' Yoshimo battles.... But they had the Japanese import for Fight Test! But I didn't have enough cash to buy an import. *** A apparently had a big fight with his girlfriend. His phone rings. He answers. Unlike in the movies there is no split screen, and I can only see and hear what he says. "Why did you call me," he says stiffly into the little plastic contraption. "What did you call me for," he says again. "So?" *click* *** "You're lucky you have someone to talk to during the exams," I say to A. "Ha! Having a girlfriend during the exams is the worst thing in the world," he replies. "Yeah, right, at least there's someone you can count on to keep you warm at night." "I think people should come in and out of relationships all the time, so that they can enjoy the best of both worlds," he says. But I wasn't listening any more. I was staring at some chick with huge tits standing over his shoulder on the train. *** "Did you see that girl with huge tits standing over my shoulder just now?" *** Suddenly, home. Five hours in less than five hundred words.
Why Catholic school girls are hot
They fight crime and combat evil! And while we're on the subject Click it! OH YES!
So it wasn't that original after all
You know that Zhang Wuji parable (there was a moral, damnit) I wrote? In school outside the exam venue one of the girls was talking about the same thing. I found it amusing, and amazing, how different people can develop the exact same idea at the same time. Unless, of course, one of the people in my school is reading my blog and helped transmit the meme. About as likely as Elvis being the guy who shot Kennedy, though. Just a random thought.
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